Wash. man gets life for 1957 slaying of Ill. girl

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FILE - This July 27, 2011 file photo provided by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department in Sycamore, Ill, shows Jack Daniel McCullough, 72, of Seattle. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday, April 9, 2012, in Sycamore for McCullough, who is charged with rape and indecent liberties with a child for the alleged abuse of a 14-year-old Sycamore girl from 1961 to 1962. The 72-year-old also faces kidnapping and murder charges in the 1957 death of Maria Ridulph, also of Sycamore. Those charges aren't part of the trial starting Monday. (AP Photo/DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, File)

December 10, 2012 10:16:51 AM PST

DON BABWIN Associated Press

SYCAMORE, Ill. (AP) - December 10, 2012 --

A former Washington state policeman convicted of kidnapping and murdering a young Illinois girl more than a half century ago was sentenced Monday to life in prison.

Jack McCullough, 73, was convicted in September in one of the oldest unsolved crimes in American history to make it to trial. Judge James Hallock had the option of sentencing McCullough from 14 years in prison to life.

The sentencing took place in Sycamore, the small community where 7-year-old Maria Ridulph was abducted and killed in December of 1957. Like McCullough's trial, it was expected to be emotional for members of both Ridulph's family and McCullough's family, as well as 63-year-old Kathy Chapman, a childhood friend of Ridulph's who was with her until moments before she was abducted. Chapman testified at the trial.

Prosecutors contended that on Dec. 3, 1957, a 17-year-old McCullough, known then as John Tessier, approached Ridulph and Chapman in front of Ridulph's house and played with them for a while. When Chapman ran home to get her mittens, prosecutors said, McCullough dragged Maria into an alley and choked her with a wire, then stabbed her in the throat and chest. Then, they said, he loaded her body into his car and drove more than 100 miles to where he disposed of her body in a wooded area.

Ridulph's disappearance drew national attention during a massive, months-long search before her body was found the following April. Reportedly, President Dwight Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover asked for regular updates on the case.

McCullough was one of more than 100 people who were briefly suspects, but he had what seemed like a solid alibi. On the day the girl vanished, he told investigators, he'd been traveling to Chicago for a medical exam before joining the Air Force.

McCullough eventually settled in Seattle, working as a Washington state police officer.

Ultimately, members of his own family helped convict him. During the trial, Janet Tessier, McCullough's half-sister, described McCullough's mother making incriminating comments about McCullough on her deathbed in 1994. The mother acknowledged that she had lied to police when she supported McCullough's alibi.

Once a new investigation was launched, authorities went to Chapman, Ridulph's childhood friend, and showed her an old photograph if McCullough. A half century later, she identified him as the teenager who came up to them that snowy day and introduced himself as "Johnny."